advertisement

SSN on Facebook SSN on Twitter SSN on YouTube RSS Feed

22 Comments
Politics

Lawyers for Injured Parkland Student Go after Four 'Negligent' Agencies

March 6, 2018 - 5:45pm
Kyle Laman
Kyle Laman

While Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature were busy crafting a $500 million school safety plan for Florida, the family of an injured student was preparing what could be the first of several lawsuits in connection with the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

The family of 15-year-old Kyle Laman, wounded in the lower leg by confessed shooter Nikolas Cruz, has taken the first steps to sue a whole range of "negligent" agencies -- local, state and federal -- according to Gossip Extra's Jose Lambiet, who reported the story Tuesday.

Under fire by the Berman Law Group, the family's Boca Raton-based law firm, the agencies each were sent a notice of claim late Monday: the School Board of Broward County, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, the state Department of Children and Families and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In an angry statement announcing the action, law firm managing partner Theodore Berman said, “It has long been time to stop putting profits over safety. No one should send their child to school only for them to come home in a body bag.”

The letter, sent on behalf of the boy's parents, Franz and Marie Laman, says the injured boy will file a claim for negligence. It is the first step on a six-month road to a full-fledged lawsuit.

Said Lambiet, "All alleged that each agency was negligent in either failing to protect the high school’s students, or not acting on tips and signs that shooter Nikolas Cruz may have been suffering (from) mental illness in the months before he killed 17 students and staffers and injured 16 people when he opened fire with an AR-15 assault rifle at the school on Valentine’s Day."

The letter "serves as our client’s formal notice of a claim,” the lawyers' letter reads.

Agencies acknowledge receipt of such letters but they generally decline comment until a lawsuit is officially filed.

The Lamans have said they sold a home elsewhere in Florida and moved to Parkland specifically so Kyle could go to the Douglas High School. Kyle was one of the last injured students released from the hospital last week.

Says Lambiet, "He is settling back at home and still hopes his right ankle, which was shattered by a bullet, will heal properly after two major surgeries to reconstruct ligaments and two more scheduled in the coming weeks."

The story also credits Kyle Laman, who, though he lay injured, gave deputies the description of Cruz they needed to find him quickly after the shooting and arrest him near the school.

Because the Laman parents quit their jobs to take care of Kyle, their friends set up a gofundme account to help out.


Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith

Comments

I appologize for the many typos in previous post. Must put glasses on next time when working with these small key pads !

Not surprised to see Department To see Department if Children and Families — they need to take a closer look into WHO they are hiring ... their backgrounds requirements should be expanded to include character, neighborhood , mental health checks . A chronically background check just doesn’t give the complete picture on an indovidual that should be holding families and children in their trust.

funny how the porch pirates are now all condemning the FBI, law enforcement, everyone. Just like I tell everyone with 45 and the Russians, this is no different, let the investigations reveal what they may. If people violated the law, then they all should be identified and held accountable. Until then, hold off on the rhetoric until you have earned the right to speak about what it means to wear a uniform and not know if today is your last...

not really an advocate for legal action, except in this case... These agencies and entities should pay and pay well, and hopefully, just hopefully, it will force some reactive change for the better...

The way I understand it, Florida's Sovereign Immunity Statute requires a 6 month notice period to any political subdivision of the state (or it's agencies/authorities) when someone intends to sue that entity. Obviously, with no insurance and limited inheritance assets pending, pointing the finger at those left having a deep pocket (translation, we the taxpayers) to dip into. Even if you consider that the damages are capped at $200K , that collectively creates a $600K pot to recover or more if an amount in excess of that limit is approved by the Legislature via a 'claim bill'. I am not familiar with how suing the FBI works but I think federal law tracks similarly as to it works. I would suspect before it is all said and done, non-governmental defendants to be added will include every mental health practitioner who saw Cruz and failed to diagnose or alert authorities to the obvious danger this unstable malcontent posed to the public at larger. Sad, very sad.

It was reported that the school was following an Obama era program of reducing official disciplinary actions, suspensions and expulsions in order to “improve” the data trends of public schools. Similar to the pre-arrest diversion trend outside of schools. Letting politics infiltrate education is having a very dangerous outcome. Not a trend we wanted.

knew it wouldn't take long for the wing nuts and whack jobs to say it was all Obama's fault...too funny...

Nice try, but the facts are these: from 2011 to 2014, Barack Obama and Eric Holder enacted several federal policies in public education designed to reduce or eliminate what they called the "school to prison pipeline". From the PROMISE Act to the "Dear Colleague" letter that went out to all superintendents of public schools in 2014, the Obama administration spelled out their demands: that black and Hispanic students must stop getting arrested for crimes they committed in school, and must stop getting expelled. Fifty-three public school districts across the nation, including Broward County, Florida, enthusiastically embraced these new "reforms". Superintendent Runcie of Broward County schools boasted that after the first year of implementing these new programs, suspensions and arrests of students in Broward Schools was down by 68%. Mind you, the students were still committing crimes, they were simply no longer facing consequences for those crimes, thanks to their friends in the Obama administration. It was these policies that enabled the Parkland shooter, who had already committed a long string of crimes both at home and at school, to have a clean criminal record when he went into local gun stores to buy the guns he used in the school massacre. There now, don't you feel better now that you know the facts? Class dismissed. You're welcome.

You might want to go back to class and review the FACTS in THIS SITUATION. This Kid was expelled and suspended from school. As far as we know the kid was trouble in school. That doesn’t mean if you get in trouble for breaking a school rule you have to get sent to jail. Unless he broke the law. Which is something that has not come up as of yet. Then, maybe then you will have a valid argument. How many mass shootings have broward county schools had up to this point. I think 0. To go back and blame Obama for a situation that doesn’t fall with the law you are citing is just irresponsible. Its laughable that you suggest that Obama not NRA is responsible for the law that lets criminals and mentality disturbed individuals purchase the guns in the 1st place.

Well, sooner or later, we all knew someone divine that what happened at Parkland would all be "Obama's fault."

It actually was Obama's fault, along with Eric Holder. Their policies (see my comment above for details) were sent out to all public school systems, along with the double threat of both losing federal funding and lawsuits against non-compliant districts for discrimination by Holder's Justice Department. Even with those threats, most school systems told them to go pound sand. But 53 school districts across the nation complied readily, and one of those was...you guessed it...Broward County.

Better sooner than later. Public schools have been destroyed! Call it what it is!!

That happened with Trayvon Martin , his parents and the anti-gun groups tried to paint him as an innocent little child who was coming back from the store after buying candy. They used the now famous photo of him when he was 12. The high school hid his criminal behavior under this same Obama program so people were horrified but soon found out he was a thug, much larger and much older than the pictures. The liberal media was doing what they do best and pushed their anti-gun agenda by reporting fake news.

Thank you for offering that truth. Trayvon would be alive today if he were arrested when was committing multiple crimes. He parents tried to help him, after it was late in the process as he was helped by the school system to continue down the wrong path.

Nice try. But the kid was expelled from school. Now don’t tell me if they would have suspended more or even once the shooting wouldn’t have happened.

NO ONE should be surprised: The FBI has become an incompetent "sissy shadow" of itself of late under it's almost hundred year leadership of "cross-dressing-Director" APPOINTEES; and State & local law enforcement is apparently suffering under weak-hires, without even military experience to teach them how to react in the moments of 'sheer terror' that very often crop-up in THEIR "business". The "trial lawyers" will now take up the void, and "pick at the body" acting the scavengers "part' they play so well; (and 'why not'?) ...SOMEONE has to tell these people they are incompetent (and like "Barney Fife", they should be fired....or be limited to "just one bullet", so they don't hurt themselves under stressful conditions...) (The uniform doesn't make the "Man"; the "Man" makes the uniform: otherwise he might as well wear a dress.. errrrr, a Kilt..)

But where is the lawsuit against the NRA? They were to blame, right?

Is the NRA telling you they were getting blamed or is it Fox. The problem I think most people had with the NRA is how they now say we need to put more guns in the schools. But they were not getting blamed for the shooting. They want to act like they actually care, but the only thing they are doing is filling up there pockets.

WRONG ! .... and "Heerre's Your Card !" (It says, "Sheep")

How?

Indeed.

"Ewe Sheepess"

Comments are now closed.

politics
advertisement
advertisement
Live streaming of WBOB Talk Radio, a Sunshine State News Radio Partner.

advertisement